EVENTS

One Stop Atheist Christmas

Looking back over the years, I find that I have written quite a bit for christmastime. Of course, I post them as the day draws near, and typically far too late for anyone to send them out as cards, or (more likely) as a response to somebody’s chain-letter, spam, facebook rant, or Fox news story. So I thought I’d collect some of them here, on the off chance that they might come in handy a bit earlier in the season.

We’ll all open presents, and cook a big dinner,And share in traditions we learned long agoBut Christmas is different for this humble sinner,No “birth of the saviour”, just people we know....

I always liked that one.

Then, the war on christmas reared its ugly head, and had to be explained:

So it’s Christmas—my Christmas—my secular day;The Supreme Court decided it must be that way.As a secular holiday, Christmas can stay,With department-store Santa Claus, there on display,Or with Rudolph, or some other TV cliché,And your photograph taken in front of the sleigh....

A bit clunkier than the first, but war does that.

“The war on christmas” has been a frequent theme; my proposal on how to fight it was… to celebrate it in all the ways the puritanical enemy finds abhorrent:

From the Cape of Good Hope to the Newfoundland islands,The sands of Iran to the Panama isthmus;From Outback Australia to Inverness HighlandsIt’s time to take arms in the War Against Christmas!

[front]As we battle our way through the line at the storeAnd think to ourselves “there has got to be more”And wonder where “Christmas of long ago” went,When the meaning of Christmas was what it first meant…

[inside]It was stolen by Christians from heathens, of course—From Greeks and from Romans, from Celtics and Norse—Why, Christmas is pagan, from yule-log to treeTo mistletoe waiting for you and for me...

‘Twas the night before Christmas; the Christians all hunkeredIn basements of buildings they’d armored and bunkered.They huddled in silence; they huddled in fear,With thoughts that the atheists soon would draw near...

Actually, there is even more back in the archives, but this is enough.